Anthea Hartig can’t figure out how to push a microphone button during a congressional hearing, how to define a woman, or whether history should be used for activism. But the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History insists that her love for the United States is “unconditional.”
Except that Hartig equivocates on that one, too. Several times she pledged her love for America during two hearings by congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, at which I was also a witness.
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The problem for Hartig is that, during her seven-year tenure as head of the history museum, she has also several times repeated that “loving America is very complicated.”
Confronted with her own past words, this is how Hartig tried to split the baby: “My personal belief is that loving America is not complicated. But as an historian, I can tell you that over time it has been very complicated for many people,” she said under grilling by chairman Bryan Steil (R–WI).
And no, nobody believed that Hartig couldn’t figure out how to turn on the microphone, and had to fumble with the button with every single question, saying things like, “Whoops. Is that on?”
It became evident very quickly during the first hearing on Monday that Hartig was just stalling for time, as each member gets only five minutes. At one point, Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH) ran out of patience and blurted out, “No, sorry, you don’t want to answer.”
Running out the clock was also the reason she never answered any questions in a straightforward manner, first on Monday to the House oversight committee’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, and then on Tuesday to the House Committee on Administration.
The congressional hearings were prompted by a devastating report issued on Independence Day by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, which richly details in 162 pages the anti-American agenda that Hartig’s museum pushes.
In my own testimony, on both days, I pointed out how Hartig and other Smithsonian leaders use the deconstruction techniques of the postmoderns to tear down U.S. history.
I said this: “Read the report and you will find that it is not just postmodernism that guides the Smithsonian’s leadership. They see the world in terms of power dynamics — who has dominance and how to wrest it from them by dismantling the American narrative. This is deeply Marxist and Gramscian.”
I called on Congress to use whatever power it has to work with the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents and “clean house” by firing the entire leadership. I also called on them to fire Bunch and de-authorize the upcoming Latino museum, which will become yet another incubator of anti-American grievances if it’s ever built.
Whether Hartig will go, I don’t know, but she did have two terrible days of hearings, particularly on the second day, when she was repeatedly asked questions she had no answers for.
For example, she has repeatedly said in the past that history should be used for activism, but then she refused to give a straight answer, prompting Steil to exclaim in frustration, “I’m gonna just note you’re filibustering.”
Other questions came on why a “National History Museum” has exhibits available to children which show sadomasochistic “crotch harness,” and a “trans nonbinary” person’s “chest binder.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Stephanie Bice (R–OK) asked Hartig, “Yesterday, you refused to answer a question from my colleague about whether or not you think it is appropriate for the museum to display sexually suggestive imagery near youth content. I want to give you another chance to answer that question. Is it appropriate to house this type of material near youth content? Yes or no?”
Hartig again fumbled with the button, hemmed and hawed, while Bice kept saying “the answer is yes or no!” To which Hartig finally responded that, yes, it is OK to show these things because “The issue of gender is at the front of many Americans.” Whatever that means.
Exasperated, Bice shot back, “Sexually explicit material should never be near youth content. The answer should be no.”
Same with questions on what a woman is. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill) asked several times, “Can you tell us, can a man become a woman?”
Hartig: crickets.
On the question of the gender exhibit, it turns out that Hartig may have perjured herself on Tuesday. Rep. Miller said at the Wednesday hearing that a day earlier, “Twice you told members of Congress that the exhibit was never designed for children.”
True. Hartig on Tuesday told Rep. Tim Burchett (R–TN) that exhibit, “Girlhood Is Complicated,” was “not designed for children. It had a label in the beginning of the exhibition that shared with parents about some of the topics that would be covered.”
Yet, as we all heard on Wednesday, when the exhibition began, Hartig issued a video saying, “We so look forward to welcoming girls and boys to this exhibition.”
The ball is now with the head of the Smithsonian, Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, who has the authority to hire and fire the museum directors. He either sticks by her now or throws her under the bus to keep his power.
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But Bunch needs to go himself. As I told the committee on Wednesday, it was Bunch himself who called for training the Smithsonian staff with racist material that called such traits as “objectivity,” “individualism,” “perfectionism,” “worship of the written word,” etc., as characteristics of white supremacy culture.
One 2022 report that bears his name called “perfection,” a “white dominant characteristic.” I asked, “Does anyone in this committee believe that perfection is a white characteristic?”